James Dorr's novella takes us to a mysterious garden, an oasis of plenty in the midst of a blighted New England countryside. From there, however, we enter a world of cutting edge biochemistry, experimentation with DNA and implanted memories, of modifications of near-microscopic life, albeit still in a gothic setting more reminiscent, perhaps, of authors like Hawthorne or Poe. Add to this setting the reclusive daughter, Alma Sharp, of an almost legendary invertebrate zoologist, mix with a graduate student from Boston, Steven Kerridge, whose upcoming thesis is based on the work of Sharp's father, and what results is a cocktail of science and love, of death and horror, a horror that ultimately will spill out to the world beyond-The Garden, by James Dorr.